LP gas is classified into imports from gas producing countries and domestic production including by-products from production processes of petroleum products. Import terminals where LP gas carried from gas producing countries by tankers is stored and petroleum refinery terminals are referred to as primary terminals. LP gas is loaded into domestic vessels or tank trucks at a primary terminal and shipped to secondary terminals that are transit stations for LP gas transportation which are located longshore or inland. Then, the LP gas carried to a secondary terminal is transported to LP gas filling stations in various locations (delivery bases), where gas cylinders are filled with the LP gas.
Gas cylinders filled at the respective delivery bases are delivered by a deliveryman to customer homes such as general households, collective housings, and business facilities. A used gas cylinder in a customer home is exchanged with a filled gas cylinder and is collected to a delivery base. Each delivery base is associated with a fixed delivery area for which a deliveryman is responsible. Based on a delivery list, each deliveryman visits customer homes within the delivery area and delivers a gas cylinder.
The delivery list is prepared by predicting the amount of LP gas remaining in the gas cylinder based on the past gas usage of the respective customers, the meter indication input result of the gas meter of a customer home (also may be referred to as a customer), and a delivery record for example to adjust a delivery due date (also may be referred to as delivery prediction) so as to prevent a gas shortage. The meter indication input of the gas meter is carried out by a deliveryman, a meter reader who periodically checks the usage, and a safety inspector who performs a safety inspection to visually check the gas meter to input the meter indication value to a mobile terminal carried by each of the above responsible personnel. The inputted meter indication value is collected from the mobile terminal and transmitted to a server computer and is used for delivery prediction.
However, the meter indication input is frequently carried out by using a soft keyboard on the mobile terminal, which causes an input error due to the depression of a wrong button for example. The inputted meter indication value can be checked by the mobile terminal. However, the meter indication input is very frequently carried out outside and thus the influence of rain or sweat for example prevents a responsible person from recognizing an error input. Furthermore, if a value significantly different from that of the gas usage of the previous month for example is inputted, an alert regarding a false value can be displayed. However, a significant change in the usage may be actually caused by a seasonal change (i.e., this change does not cause a false value). In this case, whether an error input is caused or not must be ultimately determined based on the determination by a responsible person. As described above, the inputted meter indication value is used in the subsequent delivery prediction for example, thus causing an error input to have a huge impact on the business.
The present invention has been made in view of the disadvantage as described above. It is an objective of the invention to provide a check system and a method that minimizes the error inputs during the input of the meter indication values of an LP gas meter.